Lifeguard Duty, Dead Inside

The whistle around my neck felt like a noose. "Keep your eyes on the pool, Maya," my manager had said during training. "You're basically a spy. Watch everything."

I scanned the water, which was less spy mission and more zombie apocalypse simulation. I'd pulled three consecutive doubles studying for finals, and my brain was definitely dead. Like, zombie dead. The kind where you zone out mid-conversation and accidentally say "yeah" to questions that weren't actually questions.

"Earth to Maya!"

I jumped, nearly knocking my phone into the deep end. Jake, the junior lifeguard, was dangling a chocolate bar in front of my face. He had this stupid grin that made my stomach do things I pretended it didn't do.

"You've been staring at that empty lounge chair for twenty minutes," he said. "What's so interesting?"

"Nothing," I said, way too fast. "Just... thinking."

"About?"

"How much I hate summer," I lied. The truth? I'd been watching him all week from behind my sunglasses, feeling like a total creep. Like, actual spy behavior. But I couldn't help it — the way he joked with the little kids, how he actually paid attention during staff meetings, how his hair looked when it was wet from pool water.

Not that I'd noticed.

"You know," Jake said, leaning against the lifeguard stand, "you're the only person I know who can make guarding an empty pool look stressful."

"I'm not stressed."

"You literally just sighed like someone died."

A kid cannonballed into the water, spraying both of us. Jake laughed, shaking droplets from his hair. In that moment, I realized something that almost knocked me over: I didn't hate summer. I just hated how terrified I was of messing it up.

"Hey," Jake said quietly. "My friends are having a thing tonight. Bonfire at the beach. You should come."

My heart did something embarrassing. "Like... as a friend?"

"Like however," he said, already walking backward toward the snack bar. "Just show up, zombie girl."

I watched him go, then checked my reflection in my phone's black screen. My raccoon eyes from yesterday's mascara were still visible. My hair was a disaster. And for the first time all summer, I didn't care.

"Maya!" A mom called from the gate. "Did my daughter just—"

"She's fine," I said, lifting the whistle to my lips. "I've got eyes everywhere."